Terry Marotta: A pain in the glass

Monday

Remember the old story about the man of faith who, found on the roof of his house as the floodwaters rise, refuses a ride in his neighbor’s rowboat? He’s just that sure that God will save him.

Remember the old story about the man of faith who, found on the roof of his house as the floodwaters rise, refuses a ride in his neighbor’s rowboat? He’s just that sure that God will save him.

Then “Get in!” calls a second party rowing to his aid when the waters have risen higher yet; and still he refuses.

Even as he clings to his chimney-top hours later he waves away all help.

And so?

And so he drowns, and on getting to heaven marches right up to God and demands to know why he abandoned him.

“What do you mean ABANDONED you?!” cries God. “I sent three different parties to SAVE you!”

The guy just didn’t get the message; didn’t know a blessing when it rowed right up and begged him to come aboard.

And nine times out of 10, neither do we.

I generally don’t. For the last 10 days, the universe was trying like mad to send me some messages, but I was too nearsighted to hear them – until the day I realized they were all coming in through my windows.

One morning out of the blue, our kitchen window fogged up completely. It’s that new kind of double-paned window that’s guaranteed for 20 years, so we called the manufacturers, and they sent a couple of specialists to take it out and repair it. And for the whole seven hours it was out, I shivered and inwardly whined, shivered and whined.

Then just four days later, my husband and a friend were working in the second-floor room I use as my office, trying to re-caulk two windows grown so approximate in their fit that the ivy creeps right in and inches up the wallpaper.

They had the sashes out and were just addressing them with caulking compound when a comedy of errors involving a cat and a precariously balanced pile of books caused both panes of curved glass to crack - pow! - right down the middle. R.I.P., glass! You two irreplaceable pieces of 1890s glass that we are told will take four to six weeks to replace!

So here I am every day now, trying to work in a room two of whose three windows are simply … missing. Plastic sheeting covers the giant holes, each big enough to drive a golf cart through.

Thus, when it rains, the rain drums loudly. When it’s windy, my very hair blows around. And at all hours I can hear so much street noise it is as if I am outside myself: airplanes and cars roaring along, school buses braking, my neighbor talking on his cell phone as he stands at his curb.

I can even smell the outdoors in this room, and maybe it was this smell that finally sent me to the one good window.

I opened it and leaned out as far as I could and caught it all: the fresh scents of new air and moist soil, the sweet breath of the trees … and the sound of the birds! The birds are back, calling excitedly as they choose new homes and catch up on the news.

So birds and wind and rain were all sending a message that, thanks to three busted windows, I finally “got.”

“Look up!” the message was. “Look around!”

Because Earth is waking up, and spring herself has sent us a lifeboat.

Write to Terry at tmarotta@comcast.net or P.O. Box 270 Winchester, MA 01890. Google her name and the quote-enclosed phrase “Pane in the Glass” to see pictures of this misadventure.

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